GARY WILLIAMS
Polegate
Summary
A passionate technology professional who has worked in IT for over 30 years across a variety of industry sectors.
Occasional public speaker, trainer, content provider, former VMware vExpert and Veeam Vanguard.
Overview
31
31
years of professional experience
1995
1995
years of post-secondary education
Work history
IT INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGER
CITYWIRE FINANCIAL PUBLISHERS LTD
London
07.2022 - 11.2025
- Successfully managed a team of three engineers to deliver essential IT projects.
- Oversaw budget management for infrastructure operations and vendor relationships.
- Ensured robust security for both on-premises and cloud-based services.
- Coordinated data centre and AWS migration projects alongside asset management activities.
- Maintained infrastructure across diverse global sites, including Paris and Munich.
- Reviewed supplier performance metrics to improve service delivery efficiency.
- Directed network and storage system management for alignment with organisational needs.
IT INFRASTRUCTURE TEAM LEAD
GENIUSSPORTS LTD
London
02.2014 - 07.2022
- Led IT infrastructure team overseeing on-premises and cloud elements, including networks and security.
- Managed Active Directory, storage solutions, and VMware systems effectively.
- Executed budget planning and project management to ensure resource optimisation.
- Directed major projects, including complete data centre relocation and SAN OS upgrades.
- Upgraded VMware estate to enhance performance and reliability.
- Provided strategic guidance to management on project roadmaps and implementation.
- Coached team members through new or difficult workflows.
- Supported new hires through onboarding process for speedy and successful training.
SENIOR STORAGE & VIRTUALISATION ENGINEER
CONTROL CIRCLE LTD
City of London
11.2012 - 02.2014
- At ControlCircle my role was to design and administer storage and virtualisation solutions for a variety of clients that ControlCircle manage.
- These projects have ranged from small scale P2V migrations of a few hundred GB to a migration of over 120TB of data and virtual machines.
- I have also lead a project to test out a pure SSD solution on a SolidFire cluster.
- The results of that project were then used to define the best use cases for the Solidfire platform.
SENIOR STORAGE & VIRTUALISATION ADMINISTRATOR
ADAPT PLC (NOW RACKSPACE)
London
02.2012 - 11.2012
- Leveraged potential of award-winning eVDC by optimising Netapp metrocluster environment.
- Reviewed existing infrastructure to align with Flexpod best practices.
- Introduced software solutions including System Manager, Operations Manager, and Performance Manager for enhanced functionality.
ETP SENIOR SPECIALIST
NOKIA UK LTD
Southwark
09.2003 - 02.2012
- I joined Symbian Software in 2003.
- Symbian was taken over by Nokia is February of 2009.
- Within Symbian I have worked in both the project and support teams as needed.
- This has involved working with the project teams to plan, design and execute a project and then with the support teams to ensure a smooth handover and the ability of the support team to manage the new systems introduced.
- When Nokia took over Symbian I was heavily involved with the Nokia Corporate Security team to ensure that the Symbian security policies and procedures matched those of Nokia.
- This included patching, monitoring and linking the Symbian environment to the Nokia one.
SENIOR NETWORK ADMINISTRATOR (CONTRACTOR)
CORPORATEC NETWORKS
Piccadilly
05.2003 - 09.2003
- Served as senior network administrator on contract basis for Corporatec Networks.
- Prepared client estimates to support informed decision-making on projects.
- Facilitated collaboration through meetings among clients, architects, and engineers.
- Maintained construction documentation to ensure transparency throughout project phases.
SENIOR SUPPORT TECHNICIAN
WJB CHILTERN
Paddington
03.1998 - 05.2003
- Delivered technical support to clients as senior support technician at WJB Chiltern.
- Assisted Y2K project through supplier liaison and testing environments.
- Successfully migrated datacentre from Oxford Street office to Paddington office.
- Collaborated with third-party providers to upgrade systems from Novell to Windows NT domain.
- Facilitated core systems projects with Corporate Finance teams to enhance client services.
- Engaged with specialist financial services such as SWIFT and Bloomberg.
CONTRACTOR
SIMMONS & SIMMONS
London
09.1997 - 02.1998
- Provided comprehensive IT support for end users during tenure as contractor at Simmons & Simmons.
- Led project aimed at replacing backup system, improving reliability and performance.
NETWORK SUPPORT TECHNICIAN
GUINNESS MAHON
London
06.1996 - 08.1997
- Provided robust support for network infrastructure, enhancing operational efficiency at Guinness Mahon.
- Partnered with private finance team to address network-related challenges swiftly.
SYSTEMS SUPPORT ANALYST
HENRY BUTCHER & CO.
London
07.1995 - 05.1996
- Coordinated support for Novell NetWare systems, printers, and software across Henry Butcher & Co's two locations.
SYSTEMS SUPPORT ASSISTANT
THE HOME OFFICE
Westminster
06.1994 - 06.1995
- Delivered comprehensive systems support to staff within stats team at The Home Office.
- Operated independently at Abell House site, ensuring seamless service provision.
- Collaborated with team members to resolve technical issues efficiently.
Education
Diploma of Higher Education - Computer Science
Newham Community College
London 06.1989 - 06.1991
GCSEs - Education
Forest Gate Community School
LondonComputer Science
University of North London
London 06.1991 - 06.1994
Skills
Operating Systems
Very Strong Windows skills (all versions) This includes installation, configuration, troubleshooting and deployment (Sysprep/WDS/scripted) abilities
Experience of NetWare 3x to 6x, All to administration level
Experience of Novell eDirectory running on Windows & Linux
Strong Linux skills primarily in CentOS and containerisation
Directory Systems
Design and installation of Active Directory to DR levels and eDirectory installation & Implementation, I have been involved in training and presenting on Active Directory
Storage/San & NAS systems
Installation, configuration and administration of SolidFire clusters
Experience of high IOP storage arrays such as RAMSAN and Violin SAN systems
Extensive experience of NAS systems and NAS protocols
Atlassian/Kanban products
Experience with JIRA, Confluence and bitbucket up to and including full configuration
of swimlanes, work flows, automation and more
Project Management
Extensive experience with various project management methodologies and
experience of delivery projects to time and under budget
Virtualisation and cloud technologies/DevOps
Devops and cloud and serverless
E-Mail Systems
Network & Load Balancers
Strong experience of TCP/IPv4/v6, Vlans, VPC’s, VPN’s, Kemp, F5 and load balancerorg machines
Network hardware (Cisco, Brocade and Juniper)
Skills in configuration, Fault Finding, Cisco IOS upgrades, JUNOS exposure, etc
Scripting technologies
Scripting skills with Batch files, Kix, Powershell, etc Some Linux scripting
Backup Technologies
Netbackup, Backup exec and extensive experience with Veeam Experience with the full backup lifecycle and DR processes as well as RPO/RTO targets
Monitoring Systems
Experience of SNMP configuration and tools such as Nagios, check MK, Big Brother, Sitescope and Nagios, Graylog, Splunk, Graphite & Grafana
Anti-Virus Software / Anti-Spam
Financial Software
Exposure to Sage, Viztopia, Lipper Hindsight, Bloomberg, ability to install, configure and troubleshoot
Security Technologies
Experience with Windows security templates, Server hardening and SSL/TLS encryption technologies Bluecoat Proxy devices, McAfee Intrushield, Darktrace and Qualys hardware
Database Systems
Experience with design, installation, configuration and troubleshooting of MS SQL stand alone, clustered systems and always on, Installation and support of MySQL on Linux and Windows and usage of AWS hosted RDS
Server Hardware
Ability to build servers from ‘the ground up’ as well as configure and troubleshoot a variety of hardware such as HP, IBM and Dell – Both server hardware and blade systems, Cisco UCS Chassis systems
Documentation
Strong documentation skills, I have fully documented networks and procedures for both IT Departments and end users as well as provided both mentoring and training to clients and staff
Communication Skills
Very good communication skills with all levels, Able to translate technical issues into both plain English and am fully aware of the business focus
Management and budgetary skills
Experience of running small teams of up to 8 people, co-coordinating work for
Projects and reporting budgetary requirements for planned work
Affiliations
- Volunteer Cyber protect officer for Sussex Police
Timeline
IT INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGER
CITYWIRE FINANCIAL PUBLISHERS LTD
07.2022 - 11.2025
IT INFRASTRUCTURE TEAM LEAD
GENIUSSPORTS LTD
02.2014 - 07.2022
SENIOR STORAGE & VIRTUALISATION ENGINEER
CONTROL CIRCLE LTD
11.2012 - 02.2014
SENIOR STORAGE & VIRTUALISATION ADMINISTRATOR
ADAPT PLC (NOW RACKSPACE)
02.2012 - 11.2012
ETP SENIOR SPECIALIST
NOKIA UK LTD
09.2003 - 02.2012
SENIOR NETWORK ADMINISTRATOR (CONTRACTOR)
CORPORATEC NETWORKS
05.2003 - 09.2003
SENIOR SUPPORT TECHNICIAN
WJB CHILTERN
03.1998 - 05.2003
CONTRACTOR
SIMMONS & SIMMONS
09.1997 - 02.1998
NETWORK SUPPORT TECHNICIAN
GUINNESS MAHON
06.1996 - 08.1997
SYSTEMS SUPPORT ANALYST
HENRY BUTCHER & CO.
07.1995 - 05.1996
SYSTEMS SUPPORT ASSISTANT
THE HOME OFFICE
06.1994 - 06.1995
Computer Science
University of North London
06.1991 - 06.1994
Diploma of Higher Education - Computer Science
Newham Community College
06.1989 - 06.1991
GCSEs - Education
Forest Gate Community School